


Driven

by editoress



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Some Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 22:56:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7660186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/editoress/pseuds/editoress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith suspects Pidge is holding back.  A little bonding moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Driven

**Author's Note:**

> Female pronouns for Pidge, since she took such care to announce that she was a girl.

It started, as things almost always did, during combat practice.

They had been drilling in the combat simulator together for a couple of hours.  They were all out of breath.  Only Shiro still had his visor down; everyone else had removed theirs to wipe the sweat out of their eyes.  But this was where Keith thrived, where you had to push yourself.  If Shiro was centered, then Keith was straining forward.

Some weren’t so eager.

The gladiator lunged for Keith.  Ducking under its weapon, he trapped its arm and used its own momentum to fling it around.  “Pidge, coming at you!” he barked.

Pidge drove her bayard into its torso but then let it keep going past her.  Hunk, next in its path, yelped and bashed it with the stock of his gun.  Gritting his teeth, Keith dashed toward the gladiator.  His blade whistled behind him.  It was easy enough to overtake Pidge; she wasn’t pressing the attack.

“Eat lasers!” Lance crowed over the rapid fire of his assault rifle.  His shots pushed the gladiator off Hunk—and right into Keith’s blade.

And that was it.  The simulation whined as it powered down and left them alone in the room.

Hunk lowered himself slowly to the ground so he could lie on his back.  “Thanks, buddy,” he offered.

“You got it,” Lance wheezed.  “I could do this… for _hours_.”

“Dude, we _have_ been doing it for hours.”

“Oh.”

Shiro finally pulled off his helmet and shook out his hair, which was just as drenched as everyone else’s.  “Good session, guys,” he told them.  “You kept it up to the last round.”

Vague cheering followed his words.

“Last round would’ve been over faster if Pidge had taken that opening,” Keith pointed out.

Pidge gave him a _look_ , the sharp, sparking one she always held for a moment before she raised her voice.  Like she was taking a second to decide how mad she was going to get.

“You could have ended it there,” Keith insisted.  “Why’d you let the fight keep going?”

“It’s just practice,” she retorted.

Why did _everyone_ say that?  “Next time it might not be!”

“ _Keith_.”  Shiro put a hand on his shoulder.  “Cool off.  It’s time to hit the showers anyway.”

Keith dropped the subject, but he couldn’t let it go.  Everyone understood what was at stake in this fight, and he didn’t _doubt_  his teammates, but he felt like he was the only teenager giving a hundred and ten percent.  They had all trained at Galaxy Garrison.  Why did he feel sometimes like he and Shiro were the only fighters?

For the first while, Keith had called his late-night walks becoming familiar with the castle.  Now they had been here long enough that he couldn’t say he was doing anything but wandering.  It helped to move while he thought.  Most nights he was tired enough to pass out—in fact, his legs were protesting right now—but his mind wouldn’t sit still.

That was how he found Pidge.

He saw the white gleam of her laptop screen first.  Any kind of artificial lights from Earth still stuck out from the glow of Altean technology.  Keith wandered into the control room to see her bent over the screen, tracing something with a finger.  “What are you doing up?” he asked.

She snorted, but she didn’t sound mad.  “Look who’s asking.”

“Well, I—yeah, okay..”  He leaned over to look at the laptop upside-down.  “Is that… Galran?”

“Yep.”  She copied over another squiggle.  “Just some wideband broadcasts the castle’s picked up.  I’m trying to get a Galran-English translation working.”

Keith put his hands on his hips and leaned over farther, intrigued.  “Do you _know_  Galran?”

“Nope.”  She glanced up at him with a grin.  “But I know what military broadcasts sound like.”

“No way.”  He watched her work.  She had some kind of audio running on loop; he could just hear it over her headphones.  She must be matching the text with the audio _and_  the English version.  “Is it working?”

Pidge shrugged.  “Slowly.”

“How long have you been at this?”

She waved her hand.  “Uh, five nights?  Six?”

“Do you sleep?” Keith joked.

“Sure,” she replied neutrally without looking up from her laptop screen.

He shoved his hands into his pockets.  The only sound in the room was the faint noise of Galran announcements and the clacking of computer keys.  It was later than he’d realized.  He was exhausted, and he wanted to turn in for the night.  But not until he made himself face the fact that he’d been a massive idiot.

Keith slid down to sit next to Pidge.  “Sorry I snapped at you in combat training.”

Pidge pulled her headphones out and blinked at him.

“I just want the team to give it our all,” he explained.  “And I get frustrated when I think that’s not happening.  But—I was wrong.  You work as hard as I do.  Probably harder.  And I forgot.”

She pressed her lips together thoughtfully.

“Yeah.”  Was he supposed to keep talking?  He floundered for a moment.  “I only said that because…”

“Because you don’t think before you talk?” she suggested smartly.

“Uh…”  He couldn’t help a sheepish smile.  “I was going to come up with something that sounded better, but… yeah.  So… I’m sorry.”

She grinned back at him.  “Apology accepted,” she decided.  “Wanna hear what a Galran pop song sounds like?”

By the time Keith headed for his quarters, he was in such a good mood that he didn’t mind when Pidge pointedly teased him about wimping out before sunrise.


End file.
